Good news for fans of Adam Sandler and/or Subway collector’s cups, we’re less than two weeks away from the return of Happy Gilmore. Netflix’s highly-anticipated Happy Gilmore 2 will obviously be bringing back a number of the original’s supporting cast members, including Christopher McDonald, Ben Stiller and, to her great surprise, Julie Bowen. But unfortunately, not everyone made it to the year 2025.
Tim Herlihy, who co-scripted both the first movie and the sequel, recently guested on Andy Richter’s podcast The Three Questions, and pointed out that several actors from OG cast aren’t in the movie for the most depressing reason. “Sadly a lot of the cast has passed away,” Herlihy noted, first pointing out that Happy’s one-time bare-knuckle boxing opponent Bob Barker died in 2023 at the age of 99.
“And then, you know we actually lost Carl Weathers and Joe Flaherty during production,” Herlihy added.
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Weathers famously passed away in February of 2024, while Flaherty, who played the obnoxious heckler, died just two months later.
Although it’s unclear if including Barker and Flaherty in the sequel was ever a part of the plan, Herlihy revealed that a scene involving Weathers’ character, Happy’s one-handed mentor Chubbs, was his entry point into the story. Even though Chubbs tragically died after being spooked by a stuffed alligator, and falling out of a window as a result, Herlihy had a plan for how to bring him back.
“The first thing I wrote — I just had an inspiration to write a scene of Chubbs Peterson, which is Carl Weathers’ character, in heaven. And just wrote that and was so excited (because) he was such a great guy. And (it would have been great) getting to work with him again. And then he actually passed away as we were working on the script.”
Re-visiting Chubbs in the afterlife makes a lot of sense, considering that the last place we ever saw him was in the clouds, gazing down at Happy along with the spirits of his alligator nemesis and, of course, Abraham Lincoln.
Director Kyle Newacheck has previously claimed that Chubbs will still have some sort of presence in the sequel. “You can’t make Happy Gilmore without Chubbs Peterson,” he told Collider. “It doesn’t exist. You can be assured his spirit is throughout the film. He may not be by Happy’s side anymore, but he’s on his shoulder.”
Newacheck is likely referring to Lavell Crawford’s role, which is reportedly that of Chubbs’ son (and apparently prosthetic hands are an inheritable trait in the Happy Gilmore-verse).
Hopefully he wasn’t hinting that the movie will include some Ghostbusters: Afterlife-esque CGI graverobbing.
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